New development: Turning around failing schools - lessons from Lahore

This article reviews the operation of two improvement partnerships in Pakistan, where third sector organisations adopted selected state schools. We reflect on the lessons arising from both schemes in the light of the Institute of Educational Sciences’ (IES) guidance on turning around schools. Although the operation of both partnership schemes is context specific, the findings should nevertheless be of interest to policy-makers in other countries. They also show how some aspects of the IES’s guidance may need to be adapted and augmented, especially in the context of developing countries.